Leviton TS830 USB wall outlet

WHAT IS IT:  USB AC wall outlet

NEW, FUTURE or RETRO:  new

PREVIEW or REVIEW:  review

HOW GOOD IT IS:  There are two places in my house that always seem to be where I need to plug in some sort of USB device, either to use it temporarily or to give it a quick charge.  One place is next to my favorite chair in the den and the other is in the bathroom so the device is ready to go when I head out the door.  Neither place is where I would routinely charge my devices.  The kinds of devices I’m talking about can range from smartphone to tablet to Bluetooth headset to Bluetooth speaker to car GPS.  Life got a whole lot easier when I discovered the existence of USB wall outlets.  I now have them installed in both places

3M™ Mobile Projector MP410

WHAT IS IT:  Ultra tiny video projector

NEW, FUTURE or RETRO:  new

PREVIEW or REVIEW:  review

HOW GOOD IT IS:  There are a few things about this projector that don't immediately sink in to the brain when you first see it pictured on this page. 

First, it's hard to appreciate how EXTREMELY small it is from the photo. It is impossibly small!  Ridiculously small!  Having given business presentations for which I had to lug a projector the size of a suitcase with me, I would have given anything for a projector this small.

The other thing that seems like just another spec on

Chamberlain MyQ internet gateway

WHAT IS IT:  Check and control your garage door from anywhere

NEW, FUTURE or RETRO:  new

PREVIEW or REVIEW:  review

HOW GOOD IT IS:  When I bought my current garage door opener it had a feature called MyQ. I had no idea what that meant, but I bought it anyway. A couple of years later I bought a car with MyQ button in the control panel and quickly learned I could program one to open my garage door. Woohoo, no more remote stuck to the sun visor!

When this product was introduced I went through a similar period of head scratching. Would it work with my door opener? What would it do? How well would it do it? Would I need an electrician to install it? Here's what I learned. The product literature stresses that it

Anker 25W 5V - 5-Port Wall Charger

WHAT IS IT:  5-port dedicated smartphone/tablet power charger

NEW, FUTURE or RETRO:  new and hot

PREVIEW or REVIEW:  review

HOW GOOD IT IS:  One of the things Anker excels at, as a young new company, is thinking outside of the box and seeing solutions where no one else has even seen the challenges yet.

Case in point, this 5 port device charger. I have a place in my house that I have designated my “charging area”.  It is a section of countertop that is relatively unused, with an outlet that is rarely used, and in a convenient place to grab whatever is charging and dash out the door in the morning.  Even with such ideal conditions I usually end up not charging more than 2 devices at a time.   But it seems every day I am acquiring more and more things that need to be regularly charged.  Let’s count:  smartphone (every night); tablet (every night); pocket camera (several times a week); Bluetooth headset (several times a week); stereo Bluetooth headphones (several times a week); Bluetooth speakerphone (several times a week); and more.  And that’s only me, and does not include other members of the household.  Each of these devices charges optimally with certain currant parameters, so it is usually safest to use the OEM power-brick that came with the device.  That ends up with a rat’s nest of cables and transformers and always forgetting what fits what.

Sharp Talking Time

WHAT IS IT:  First ELSI quartz talking time clock (1979)

NEW, FUTURE or RETRO:  Retro

PREVIEW or REVIEW:  Review

 

HOW GOOD IS IT:
 

When the Sharp CT 660E “Talking Time” was introduced in 1979 it represented a technological breakthrough.  It was based on the first use of LSI (large scale integration) construction as opposed to the usual method at that time of mounting discrete components to a printed circuit board.  That made it an amazingly sophisticated product in the consumer marketplace at that time.  While there had been electro-mechanical “talking” devices previously this was the first talking clock to synthesize an actual human voice.  Talking products had a short-lived popularity in the 1980’s (who can forget your car insisting that “your door is a jar”) and then for the most part faded away.

Samsung S9C 55” OLED TV

WHAT IS IT:  Organic self-emitting pixel display TV with curved screen.

NEW, FUTURE or RETRO:  Brand new

PREVIEW or REVIEW:  Preview

HOW GOOD IS IT:  This product is just coming to market and has not been tested yet by Tech Toy Playground (there are no other reviews yet posted to Samsung's website).  From initial indications this will be THE television to knock the socks off your friends and neighbors.  From the first glance everyone will know it is different owing to the curved screen like you find in the fancier movie theaters.  Curved screens are possible with OLED displays (remember the predictions of roll-up TV's?) and the technology has been in development for many years.  The first OLED commercially sold was the Sony XEL-1 back in late 2007 which had an 11" screen and sold for about $2500.  They only made about 1000 of them.  Larger sizes were predicted but manufacturer's were hampered with major challenges when they tried to crank out larger sizes.

D-Link Wireless Pan and Tilt Day/Night Network Surveillance Camera

WHAT IS IT:  a simple video camera that you can view from virtually anywhere on your smartphone, tablet, laptop or computer that includes the ability to pan & tilt, zoom, listen to room sounds, take live snapshots and see the area whether it be daylight or night

NEW, FUTURE or RETRO: new

PREVIEW or REVIEW: review

HOW GOOD IS IT: This little camera is an amazing value for the price. While many camera-based home security systems are designed to give you information after the fact, this camera will alert your smartphone if there is unusual motion activity or sounds and let you see it live, while panning, tilting and zooming to get the "best view" before you snap photos and call authorities.